Northwest Side neighborhoods launch private recycling programs

January 23, 2009|By Crystal Yednak, Special to the Tribune

The demise of the blue bag recycling program and the phase-in of the blue cart program means swaths of the city are living in a recycling limbo, where eco-minded residents either haul away their recyclables themselves or deal with the guilt. But several neighborhoods on the city's Northwest Side have gone another route, paying extra to form own curbside recycling programs until the blue cart program reaches them.

Since the death of the blue bag, habitual recyclers have driven their newspapers, cans and bottles to a recycling center to drop them off. This month, residents in Old Irving Park and surrounding neighborhoods can pay about $7 a week for trucks from the non-profit Resource Center to pick up recycling at their curbs once a week.

Many residents opting for the pickup say they are surprised recycling can be such a hassle for residents in a city that is often lauded for its "green" image.

"People are doing the whole green and organic thing, and they're cognizant of what they're putting in their garbage. You would think you would make it easy to recycle," said Anna Sobor, who helped organize the recycling effort as president of the Old Irving Park Association.

She says residents constantly asked her when the neighborhood would get blue carts.

The city is in the midst of rolling out the new program, in which single-family homes and buildings with four or fewer units can put recyclables in a blue cart the city picks up every other week. To date, 176,000 households have received the carts, according to the Department of Streets and Sanitation. Another 140,000 are slated to be added each year until the program reaches all 600,000 homes served by Streets and Sanitation by the end of 2011.

Matt Smith, spokesman for Streets and Sanitation, said the city encourages residents to use the city's 16 recycling drop-off centers until blue carts come to their neighborhood.

"This is something we made clear to the recycling community -- that there would be a time period during the shift when not everybody would be in the blue cart recycling program," Smith said.

He said it is great to see enthusiasm for recycling, but added that the blue cart rollout is a huge, expensive logistical effort.

"The city budget required us to modify program delivery and lay off many workers, but we're still pushing forward with blue cart," he said. "That should be heartening to [the residents]."

The city also wants to expand the number of drop-off locations, he said.

The blue carts replace the blue bag program, which had residents buying bags for recyclables that were picked up by city trucks. The program was dogged by questions about its effectiveness and the amount of material being recycled.

Ald. Thomas Allen (38th), whose ward includes some of the neighborhoods involved with homegrown recycling, said he admires the efforts.

"At the same time, I'm a little embarrassed that we don't have this citywide," he said. "These people pay a lot of taxes, and in the year 2009, for the city of Chicago to not have the most basic component of recycling -- namely newspapers, plastics, cans and bottles -- is kind of ridiculous."

The Old Irving Park Association started talking in November about helping residents with their recycling efforts until blue carts arrived. Other neighborhood associations in West Walker, Independence Park, The Villa and Horner Park West, along with the UNITE Civic Association, signed on to participate.

Mike McNamee, director of recycling collections for the Resource Center, said the organization already picks up recycling from some single-family homes, condo buildings and institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Shedd Aquarium.

The Resource Center, which operates other recycling drop-off locations, charges for the pickups to cover the cost of trucks, wages and insurance, he said.

If Sobor could get at least 100 homes near her neighborhood to sign up, McNamee told her, the center could start a curbside recycling program.

The residents rounded up 125 interested households and were ready to get started, Sobor said, when prices for some recyclables at the scrap market tanked. That meant the Resource Center was not getting as much for the material it recycled and had to raise the costs slightly, McNamee said.

Some residents dropped out, but the pickups started with the hope that more would sign up.

John Aitken, 51, a resident of Independence Park, said the convenience makes the weekly fee worth it. He doesn't have to drive to a drop-off site.

As it is now, in areas without blue carts "it's totally left to the individuals to haul it themselves," Aitken said. "But the fact that this was spearheaded by neighborhoods I think says a lot about people's desire to recycle."

Debra Schwartz of Old Irving Park said her family stopped recycling for a short time after the blue bag program ended, but her high school-age son started lecturing his parents about the need to recycle.

Soon they were driving to a recycling center again.

When the offer for curbside recycling popped up, Schwartz jumped on it.

Schwartz was hoping to be part of the early blue cart rollout, but understands the need for a phase-in.

"Everything the city provides comes at a cost, and you have to pay for it somehow," she said. "I'm interested in having the city come up with a recycling program that, if they launch across the whole city, really works."

James Natoli, also of Old Irving Park, said he is hoping the neighborhood effort will make a statement.

"It's surprising how much we could waste or throw away when you really start to add it up after a few weeks. It's incredible," he said.